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Thursday, 13 April 2017

Better Late Than Never - My 2017 Goals!

So how did it get to be APRIL already?! I have had a reminder on my lengthy To Do list for months now to post about the goals I set for myself in 2017. Sorry it's taken me so long, but here we go...At the start of January I carried out an exercise to review the success/failures of my 2016 goals, and then carried forward my learnings for setting my new goals for 2017. I decided to stick with the same goal tracking process as I'd implemented in 2016 because I felt it had been so successful at getting me to actually TAKE ACTION and get stuff done.First of all I determined the 3 key areas I wanted to focus on for the year, and I loosely named these:1. Personal NurturingAnything falls under here which I want to improve in terms of my health, fitness, relationships, wellbeing and personal development2. Giving BackThis covers things such as donations and help for charities, fundraising efforts and any help or support I can offer to family, friends, acquaintances and people seeking my help3. Achieving FreedomThis is all about my entrepreneurial and FIRE related endeavours - my ultimate goal is to achieve freedom from working for someone else - so whether I achieve that through early retirement, funding myself through my own money making endeavours, or a combination of these two it goes under this category!

Next I spent some quiet time listing out everything which I ideally wanted to achieve this year, and these evolved into 30 goals (yes you read that right...30!). I wrote these up in a spreadsheet and for each of them added a column in which I listed how I would know that I had achieved the goal - so that I would know when I could say it was "DONE"!Since 30 is really too big a number to track and share, plus some of the goals are personal ones, I've opted to pick 10 good 'uns to share with you below. In each case I've listed underneath the goal how I know that I will have achieved it.Personal NurturingGoal 1: I will easily have read 6 new books by the end of 2017I will know I have achieved this goal when I can list the 6 new books which I have readGoal 2: I will easily attend and eagerly learn from the Tony Robbins Unleash The Power Within eventI will know I have achieved this goal when I have attended the UPW event and have made a list of notes from itGiving BackGoal 3: I will easily maintain a monthly presence in the personal finance/FIRE online communityI will know I have achieved this goal when I have either posted a blog update, or commented on a personal finance/FIRE update from a member of the online community, at least 12 timesGoal 4: I will easily hold 3 free coaching sessions in personal development or personal finance to get experience at how to coachI will know I have achieved this goal when I have provided 3 free coaching sessionsGoal 5: I will easily donate £400 to charitable causes this yearI will know I have achieved this goal when I have donated at least £400 to charity this yearAchieving FreedomGoal 6: I will easily have 4 published and promoted books on Amazon by the end of the yearI will know I have achieved this goal when I have at least 4 books published in KDP and CreatespaceGoal 7: I will easily attend and learn new tips from FinCon in DallasI will know I have achieved this goal when I have attended and made notes at Fincon 2017Goal 8: I will easily attend and learn new tips from the UK Money Bloggers conferenceI will know I have achieved this goal when I have attended the UK Money Bloggers conference (SHOMO awards 2017)Goal 9: I will easily follow my 2017 Freedom Plan so that I achieve freedom from working the 9-5 by the end of 2017I will know I have achieved this goal when I have finished my last freelance contract onsiteGoal 10: I will easily follow my FIRE by 50 plan so that I remain on target to retire by age 50I will know I have achieved this goal when I have achieved the targets for 2017 on my revised FIRE by 50 planOnce I determined my 2017 goals, I have since been breaking them down into quarterly and monthly action plans so that every month, and indeed every week, I am focussed on working toward achieving them.My thinking is if I can do just one thing every day to get me a little bit closer to at least one of my goals, then over time I'm going to achieve them eventually.So that's all for now folks. In a future post I'll do a run-down of how I'm progressing with achieving these, and whether I'm on target to tick them all off by the end of the year.Did you set any goals this year? Now that we're over a quarter of the way through the year, how are you getting on with them? I'd love to hear your thoughts below...

5 comments:

Very interested in your book publishing goal, would love to hear more about that if you are able to share any info or tips on how best to approach it? I might consider SHOMO too...! You sound very focused which can only be a good thing, I'll be sure to check back and see how you're going, good luck! I set less monthly goals this year as I found it too stressful doing that last year, but still have a number of broader goals this year. You've motivated me to take a look and see how things are going now the first quarter of the year has passed, thanks!

I must admit 30 goals for the year is a lot! I just didn't want to restrict myself after I sat down and wrote down everything I wanted to achieve - some of the goals are much easier than others.

Tickets for the SHOMO awards are available now and if you're in the UK Money Bloggers group you can get one for free, this will be my first year attending so I'm really looking forward to it - it's on Sat Sep 23rd.

I'm glad that I've given you some inspiration to check in on how you're doing with your goals. I love the whole process of setting goals and tracking them over time, so its great if I can encourage that in others. Feel free to share any of your goals and how you're getting on with them...

With regards to my book publishing goal, I have published 2 non-fiction books so far, which are published as kindle books on Amazon and available as paperbacks. I don't write the books myself, but I do research what topic I want the book to be about, come up with a title and rough breakdown of what I want to go in the book, then I hire a ghost writer to actually write the book. Once they're finished I own the rights to the book, get a cover created and publish it, followed by ongoing marketing (which is very quick and simple to do). My plan is to get more and more books published over time until eventually I'm earning a relatively passive income from the book sales which will cover my monthly expenses, at which point I can "retire" from having to work 9-5 and pursue more online business ventures that interest me!

If you're interested in finding out more about book publishing, I'd be happy to jump on a call with you to offer you some initial insights and coaching in how to get started - you'd actually be helping me achieve goal number 4 at the same time! You could give me feedback and tips on anything I can do to improve my coaching technique... Do let me know if you're interested.

I plan to set up a blog FB page (not personal FB) so that I can join UK Money Bloggers. And your book publishing is a really interesting idea, I had no idea it was possible to do that! My husband has a book he wants me to proof-read before self-publishing it, currently I haven't the faintest idea of how best to go about it, so your coaching offer is very timely! I'm definitely interested, but have yet to read the book, though I'm under pressure to get on with it! :) Once I'm a bit further forward and ready to start the process it would be a great help to have a quick chat, thank you very much for the offer!

Some great goals to go for, OR - good luck! That must have been pretty hard to whittle them down from 30 to 10. I guess you'll still be going for some of those other goals but not track them on the blog, otherwise it'd be a bit too much?

Looking forward to your update from FinCon - the FI movement in the UK is fledgling compared to the US, so it'd be great to hear of your views following your attendance.

Thanks for your good luck wishes - greatly appreciated. You're quite right that I am tracking my progress against all 30 goals, but some of them were things like "get the dining room furniture purchased and fitted", which although a great goal for me, would probably be a little dull for people interested in personal finance to read about! So I decided to pick the 10 I thought would be more interesting to my readers to talk about on the blog - also because it would simply take me too long to write about all 30 and I think I may lose a few people to sleep along the way ha ha!

I am really looking forward to attending FinCon - it feels like it was ages ago I got the hair brained idea that I should just "hop on a plane" and go! I'm hoping to attend some talks by the writers of some of the US blogs that I read...plus it's been a while since I went to the USA so that will be a lot of fun. I will be sure to write up about it on my return (or maybe even while I'm out there!)

It's been a while since I last posted one of my regular updates on how my goals or quest for Financial Independence is going. There ar...

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